Fountain Maintenance and Care Made Easy with These 4 Secrets

If you have been longing for a fountain, but constantly talk yourself out of the purchase when you think about the maintenance and care you'll have to deal with, you should know that you are probably imagining a job that is significantly larger than it really is. Below are a few essentials that make this chore a whole lot easier.

Shop Vac 

Do yourself a favor and buy a shop vac, if you don't already have one. It will completely change how you feel about cleaning your fountain. There's always a little water that is challenging to get out when it's almost empty. Of course, you want all the dirty out before you clean. Then, you want all the cleaning water out before you fill with fresh water. A shop vac will make your life a whole lot easier.

Water Treatment Product 

If you fill your fountain with distilled water it will prevent hard water stains. Of course, this also means that every time you add water to compensate for evaporation, you will need distilled water on hand to do so. To avoid the inconvenience of literally filling your vehicle with jugs of distilled water from the store to keep on hand just use a special water treatment product instead. These solutions work with regular tap water to help keep your fountain clean longer.

CLR 

Calcium lime remover will be a must-have, if you forgot to use that water treatment product previously mentioned. You never know when someone else in the house will think they are doing a good deed everyday filling the fountain before you have to, and you find out the hard way they've been using regular tap water with no treatment. Just keep a bottle of this for those "just in case" days.

Internal Drain System 

If you are having your water feature custom made, consider having an internal drain system installed. Otherwise, you can also use a hose to create a siphon to move the water into a 5-gallon bucket. Just make sure you don't fill the bucket up too high because it will be a pain to carry to dump outside. Make sure you know how much you can lift ahead of time before you actually do this. As a side note, if you have to start the siphon manually, be sure you do not swallow any of the water being emptied from your fountain.